Parallel Adventures
by SpaceTimeConundrum
Summary: New name; new job; new, new relationship. But trouble's still the same, even on a parallel world. The Metacrisis!Doctor and Rose try to settle in to a "normal" life together on Pete's World; this, as you can imagine, isn't easy, especially when the Cybermen return.
1. A Doctor By Any Other Name

**Parallel Adventures**

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_**Prologue - A Doctor By Any Other Name**_

He was John now, that was different. Sure, he'd been introducing himself in various situations over the centuries as John Smith, but it had always simply been a convenient alias. Now he was a new man; a bit more literally than was usual for even him. And if he was going to spend the rest of his life as a more or less human man on Earth, he needed a proper human name. He'd complained about the necessity at the time but now he secretly welcomed the opportunity to distinguish himself from his other, fully Time Lord, counterpart. As much as he wanted Rose to know that he was the same man who loved her and had shown her the stars, he had to accept that he couldn't be that same man going forward. That man couldn't spend his life with her; he would.

Adopting his former alias wholesale had been vetoed for a few reasons, chief among them being that it felt wrong to use it for himself when he recalled the fate of a certain other John Smith in 1913. He'd used it since the incident with the Family of Blood, but only sparingly, never for anything permanent like this would be. Now he'd be living a version of the human life he'd denied that man and the memories made him uneasy.

He and Rose quite liked John though and decided to keep it. He'd floundered at selecting the rest until she suggested that he borrow names from people he'd left behind who'd meant a great deal to him. And thus, John Alistair Noble was born. He especially enjoyed how it sounded when Rose first used it on him, rolling the words in her mouth as though tasting the syllables. She'd wrinkled her nose a bit at Alistair, but after he told her a few stories about his friendship with the Brigadier, she agreed it was perfect.

"The Doctor" was now just his official Torchwood designation, though when they were setting up the paperwork for his new identity, they'd given him a PhD in physics, so he could still lay claim to the title. Thankfully, Torchwood's origins in this universe had been wholly unrelated to himself, so the moniker didn't inspire any particular levels of suspicion. Rose still called him Doctor most of the time despite the fact that he'd told her it was okay to call him John since she'd helped him pick the name after all. As time went on, she got better about using it in social situations and he got better about responding when someone called for John or Dr. Noble.

Slowly but surely he was becoming John. In his head, a part of him would probably always still be the Doctor but he'd leave the other, long abandoned names from his past to his Time Lord "brother." He found "hello, I'm John" came to his lips more readily these days and he had to admit (though he'd never tell her) that Rose had been right; people tended to argue with you less when you gave them a proper name.

To most of the people he met, John was a friendly, eccentric bloke with messy hair, an easy smile, penchant for pinstriped suits and trainers, and a positively brilliant mind for science. This came in handy when dealing with the inevitable interest of the press following his mysterious appearance at a formal Vitex event on Rose's arm. He simply charmed the paps into keeping their distance unless there was a public function; how he did this, Rose had no clue. It had taken her months, and a quiet word from Torchwood, to get them to quit following her so much, and they really only stopped after the stars started going out and she spent all her time jumping between universes.

To his fellow Torchwood agents, most of whom were not told the full story of his alien origins, he was an enigma; a passionate genius whose enthusiasm for life and clever gadgets of any kind masked an inner steel that surfaced only occasionally, usually when Rose was being threatened. He was also an even bigger magnet for trouble than she'd been when she'd first started field work, if such at thing were even possible. He'd inspired no less than three betting pools in the office involving his uncanny ability to be at the centre of the biggest messes.

For his own part, the Doctor, no, _John_, he kept having to correct himself, still wasn't quite sure who this 'John' fellow was yet. Names aside, he kept discovering new differences between his Time Lord self and his new partially human body and Donna-influenced personality. He found that when he got upset now, his accent would get rougher again and laced with more colourful language, a fact that amused Rose but embarrassed him to no end. That was another difference; as a Time Lord, he'd been positively shameless about almost everything, ego the size of a small planet, he'd been accused of, now he found himself feeling considerably less sure of anything he did. Donna had been brilliant despite her insecurities and he knew intellectually that he'd retained all the knowledge and cleverness of the man he'd once been, but that didn't really make it easier to ignore the niggling worries in the back of his mind that he was just a poor copy of the real thing. How he'd managed to convince someone as marvelous and capable as Rose Tyler that he was worth keeping around frankly baffled him.

That was the best thing that John had but the Time Lord didn't: Rose.

He'd fallen in love with her without intending to back when he had another face and refused to venture outside of his TARDIS without the protective armour of his leather coat and that love had carried through into his regeneration. It hadn't exactly been intentional, but he'd regenerated enough times now to recognise the way his new body and personality tended to "correct for" the perceived failings of the last. He was deluding himself if he still tried to cling to the notion that it had been pure coincidence that he'd ended up younger, prettier, and enthusiastically tactile.

He'd changed for her, but coward that he was, once he found himself getting too close, he panicked. Told her in so many words that they couldn't be anything more than friends, agreed to bring Mickey along in the TARDIS to put distance between them, and when Reinette kissed him and took him dancing, he allowed himself to be distracted by an infatuation that couldn't lead anywhere. She had her place in history and he was foolish to think that he could take her with them for any amount of time. The incident ended with everyone hurt; she died waiting for him, Rose never quite looked at him the same after, and he'd lost yet another person whom he'd cared for, no matter how briefly.

It was a testament to how wonderful Rose was that she'd forgiven him for leaving her on a spaceship for five and a half hours to save Reinette. When he'd finished wallowing in his own self-pity and guilt, he'd apologised and tried to make it up to her. After Mickey chose to stay behind in Pete's World, they grew closer still and he felt his resolve to keep his distance wearing thin. He felt something terrible lurking in the timelines that he tried to ignore and clung to her, telling himself he was wrong, and that he'd done so much for the universe already, the least it could do would be to let him keep her. But then the Cybermen and the Daleks came, and she was gone. Forever, he thought; impossible to cross between the universes again.

Lucky for him it turned out that impossible was a very different thing when you were dealing with Rose Tyler.

Of course, then he had to go and throw a spanner in the whole reunion by getting himself shot by a dalek and very nearly regenerating within just a few short minutes of having her back in his arms. If there'd been no dalek, no imminent end of the universe to stop, would he have had the nerve to kiss her? He liked to think that he might have, but then, maybe that was just his new humanity creeping in again.

It still would have ended with him alone at some point though, and because he knew that, he didn't begrudge his counterpart for the hasty decision to send them back to the other universe to live out their human lives together. Heavy-handed and paternalistic, yes, but it was like removing a plaster, best to do it all at once, rather than slowly and painfully. Let the Time Lord have the comforting thought of them alive and happy on another Earth. It was better than watching them age before his eyes, or worse, getting them killed somehow on an alien world. And if they'd stayed, only one of them could really be with Rose; whichever one she chose, it would be agony for the other.

Part of him still worried that Rose might've been happier with the Time Lord. He wouldn't blame her; he really was quite rubbish as a human and it wasn't like they could just up and leave the planet whenever things got a bit sticky now. He knew he had to be driving her spare. He was working on it. Miraculously, it'd been over six months and she hadn't binned him yet. A good sign, certainly. There could be hope for John Noble yet.

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**a/n - I'm back! As promised, I've got a new multi-part adventure featuring 10.5 and Rose against the Cybermen menace plus some super-exciting-but-I'm-not-gonna-spoil-you other characters. Update schedule's going to be fairly erratic as I'm still sketching out the full plot details on this and _four_ other stories. I suggest that if you like it, just put this one on follow.**


	2. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

**Chapter One - Immigration and Customs Enforcement**

The Doctor blinked and shook his head to clear the sweat that had begun pouring in rivulets down his face and obscuring his vision. Another perk of his newfound humanity, the inability to regulate his own internal temperature as efficiently as he'd been previously accustomed. Before the metacrisis, as he was growing used to thinking of his former life now, he'd simply tweak a few of his metabolic processes and been quite comfortable while his companions glowered enviously at him and began removing articles of clothing to cool off. He was beginning to understand their complaints on a whole new visceral level.

The reason the Doctor found himself drenched in sweat in the dead of winter, or what passed for winter in the milder, global warming impacted, England of Pete's World, was this damned Torchwood mission.

One of the functions of the new, improved and fully governmentally recognized Torchwood was to step in when customs enforcement got a little... extraterrestrial. Strictly speaking, they'd served much the same function before the Cybus Incident as well, but now everything was done through much more official channels. Torchwood was afforded a remarkable degree of discretionary authority but it still had to answer to the President and the House of Commons' Oversight Committee. Mostly, it meant more paperwork and considerably less reliance on Retcon to manage "operational externalities" aka the uncomfortable questions afterwards.

As the planet became more familiar with the concept that humanity was far from alone in the universe, other agencies started to push back against Torchwood's authority, thinking that they were quite capable of handling most issues themselves. Inevitably, this meant that more often than not, Torchwood wasn't called in until situations became exceptionally dire, or needlessly complicated, much to Pete's annoyance and the Doctor's secret glee. The thrill of danger called to him still, mediated only by the gnawing fear for Rose's safety and, when he allowed himself to think about it, his own, now that he'd lost his "get out of death free" card.

This mission had started simply enough; for once they'd been called in fairly early on when a sting operation had uncovered a group smuggling in weapons from a little further away than Eastern Europe. In the interests of keeping a rash of plasma burn injuries out of the casualty wards, Rose had assembled her field team to intercept their latest shipment. It was supposed to have been the Doctor's job to locate and disable their transport system while Rose's agents took the smugglers and contraband into custody. It seemed so routine, that the Doctor thought they probably could have just let the Met handle it. The biggest difference between the police and Torchwood in this instance was really just that all of the Torchwood agents were armed; even the Doctor, or rather _John_, since he blamed his concession on this point entirely on his new status, had agreed to carry a stun pistol when told that under no circumstances would he be allowed in the field without one.

As always seemed to happen whenever a mission appeared simple, the situation rapidly deteriorated. The weapons smuggling was just the tip of the iceberg, likely being used to finance the other, much more dangerous cargo hidden deeper in the warehouse. Someone was trying to bring a couple hundred Surarin Dromel eggs into the country. Dromels were extremely fierce creatures, approximately a meter high, with razor sharp claws and thick hides. In certain parts of the galaxy, Dromel fighting was a popular form of entertainment. They had a rather nasty reputation for killing their trainers and the occasional unlucky spectators when they got loose. They were extremely quick and had the potential to be much more threatening to the safety of greater London than the shipment of cut-rate plasma disrupters.

That was not what really had him worried though. The eggs needed to be kept at a constant temperature of at least 42 Celsius, but preferably higher, in order to hatch properly; hence the sweltering heat inside the building where the Doctor was crouched, trying to come up with a plan that wouldn't end with them all sliced to ribbons by newborn Dromels or blown to pieces. Unfortunately for the greater London area, or at least everyone within a one block radius, the half-witted smugglers had gone about achieving this increase in ambient temperature via one of the most ill-advised feats of jiggery pokery he'd ever seen. Lacking the appropriate incubating equipment, they'd removed parts of their own ship's sublight engines, set them up like small pylons surrounding the eggs, and rigged a feedback loop through all of them back to an auxiliary power cell. It did indeed produce a lot of heat, but it was incredibly unstable and could quite easily be overloaded.

This would have been an excellent time to have a working sonic screwdriver, the Doctor thought as he calculated his chances of making it over to the controls without alerting the guards prematurely. The part of the original plan where his team would cut off the smugglers' possible escape route by shutting down the transmat system still needed doing. When he'd spotted the danger they were all in, he'd sent Addy and Quinn back to warn Rose before her team could find themselves in a very precarious situation. It wasn't exactly necessary that this message be delivered in person, since they were all carrying Torchwood issue communicators, but the Doctor had pulled rank on the two techs to make sure they were a safe distance away when he attempted to dismantle this unintentional booby trap.

Slipping out of his jacket and hoodie quietly, the Doctor squinted at his target; he was close enough to the eggs that in a few long strides he could be among them but there were at least two guards watching the hatching pen carefully, wary should any of their precious cargo begin to stir. That gave him an idea. Reaching into his pocket, the Doctor withdrew the palm sized glittery rubber ball that Tony had given him as a present when he and Rose had had dinner with the Tylers a few nights ago. As diversions went, this one was dead simple and probably one of the oldest tricks in the book, but these sorts of things didn't become classics because they didn't work.

Taking careful aim, the Doctor waited until the guards' backs were turned away from him and then stood quickly and hurled the ball across the warehouse, striking one of the eggs furthest from the controls with a satisfying "thwack!" It bounced off of his first target to do additional damage to a few other eggs nearby. The cracked eggs began releasing noxious green fumes and startling the guards into action. Having missed the flight of the rubber ball, they would believe that they had an early hatching on their hands and run to fetch a proper cage for the creatures.

When the guards acted exactly as he expected them to, he seized his chance and jumped up to dash to the controls. The panel was an absolute mess. Was this what passed for power regulators these days? The Doctor shook his head in amazement and set about untangling the wires feeding back to the power cell. They'd obviously not had a proper engineer on their crew. He hurried as best he could, fingers slick with sweat and glasses slipping down his nose. With any luck, his work here would serve the double purpose of cutting power to _all_ of their equipment, transmats and egg warmers included.

His plan probably would have worked too, if it wasn't for one tiny factor that the Doctor had forgotten. The Dromel eggs, in addition to having vicious, bloodthirsty creatures inside, also contained a highly corrosive nutrient substance that did not agree with the wires strung between the heating pylons. The dripping Dromel goo caused a short and the Doctor had just enough warning when the panel in front of him showered him in sparks to turn and run for the exit as fast as his trainers could carry him.

Mercifully, the Doctor had managed to disconnect the power cell from the ship's primary engines, otherwise the blast would surely have killed them all. As it was, the shockwave from the power cell overloading threw him with considerable velocity into the wall and blew out all of the windows in the large warehouse.

Before he lost consciousness, the Doctor had just enough time to reflect that Rose was not going to be pleased with him.


	3. Grounded

**Chapter Two - Grounded**

The Doctor woke to the soft beeping of a cardiac monitor and the pervasive scent of industrial cleaning products. His mouth tasted strangely metallic and he felt oddly disconnected from his body. Opening his eyes, he observed that he was in a Torchwood medical suite. Rose had fallen asleep sitting at his bedside, one bent arm serving as a makeshift pillow while the other covered his own hand.

She was still dressed in the clothes she'd worn on their mission; he hadn't been out long enough for anyone to force her to return to their flat to change. He hesitated to wake her, no doubt she could use the rest, but he knew she'd sleep better later knowing that he was all right. The fact that _he'd_ sleep better having spoken with her and reassured himself that _she_ was all right had nothing to do with it.

He tried to lean forward to gently stroke her hair but was halted by a stab of sharp pain in his side. Wincing, he pulled his arms in protectively around himself. Now that he was more awake, he realised that his ribs had been bound tightly and deep breaths had been temporarily added to the "do not attempt unless absolutely necessary" list. Considering that he'd been nearly at ground zero when that power cell blew, he supposed a few busted ribs were not to be unexpected.

His movements stirred Rose who shifted groggily and lifted her head to look at him.

"Doctor?"

"What's left of him," he tried for light-hearted, but his voice sounded more tired than he'd have liked. It hurt to speak and he fought the urge to cough, that'd be the last thing his aching chest needed right now.

Rose's eyes filled with relief and she leaned over to kiss him briefly. She wasn't particularly gentle about it, but he was hardly about to protest; he knew he'd scared her. Pulling back from him, her demeanour shifted abruptly, switching to professional concern as she evaluated him critically. Evidently deeming him fit enough, the Doctor warily noted the familiar way she set her jaw; he was in for a lecture, no doubt.

"Of all the daft, bloody-minded, idiotic things you've done, Doctor," she began, angrily, "what _on Earth_ possessed you to blow up the damn building?"

"That was an accident!" he protested.

She gave him a dubious look. "Accident or not, you shouldn't have been in there on your own. You could've easily been killed, taking on those smugglers by yourself." She silenced his further comments with a hand. "We have teams for a _reason_. All those times you got upset at me for wandering off; don't tell me you don't remember your own Rule Number One. It applies just as much to _you_ now as it does the rest of us."

He looked away, guiltily. She continued, "I know you're used to charging in and saving the day. I can't expect you to change overnight after nine hundred years, but you've got to at least try to remember the rest of us are capable too."

His head jerked up, indignantly. "Of course I know that," he snapped before softening his tone, "saved the world too many times together, you an' me, not to know that." He sighed heavily and winced as his ribs reminded him of their presence. "'s just, following orders has never really been one of my strong suits," he huffed.

Rose rolled her eyes and stroked his hand in hers. "Silly Time Lord, I didn't cross the Void to lose you in a warehouse in Camden."

He gave her a wry look. "Perish the thought. It'll take more than a volatile power cell and a few weapons smugglers stroke amateur egg farmers to put me off my game. I've survived far worse, and on many occasions, still had time for tea after." His voice softened, in deference to her genuine concern, "I'll try to be more careful though." He squeezed her hand reassuringly.

She squeezed back and with a sigh of her own, pulled out her mobile to check her messages. "We've had two teams out all night clearing up at the warehouse," she reported, "Jake thinks they've accounted for all the creatures that were in those eggs. What are they called? Addy said you seemed like you recognised them."

"Surarin Dromels," he answered. "Nasty things; remember that time we were on that station outside of Alverian Four and that fellow kept trying to entice us to attend the fights?"

Rose shuddered. "That's what those were? Glad we skipped that invitation. I hope Jake's right and we've got them all." She tapped a few brief messages in reply and tucked the mobile in her pocket. "Dad'll be in shortly. You'll be hearing it from him too, I expect."

Sure enough, a minute later there was a firm knock at the door and Torchwood's Director entered the room.

"Doctor. I trust you have an excellent explanation for the incident at the warehouse and headache you've caused all of us this evening?" he began without preamble.

The Doctor grimaced and stared at the beige ceiling balefully. Pete Tyler was a good man, whom he respected a great deal, but that didn't make it any easier when he found himself called on the carpet like a child facing punishment for his misdeeds. He desperately missed his TARDIS at times like this. Used to be, he'd be long gone before the shouting started. It was like being stuck back at UNIT all over again. _Perhaps he ought to suggest that Pete grow a moustache, since it seemed like they were making a habit of having conversations like this. _

"In my defence, Director, I was attempting to prevent a much larger explosion at the time. One that might've caused injury to more than just myself had the team gone in unawares and stray gunfire ensued."

Pete pressed his thumb and fingers to the bridge of his nose as though this answer pained him. "While I appreciate your efforts to anticipate potential mission complications, Doctor, you can't just go haring off by yourself anymore, you work for Torchwood now. You are expected to communicate with your team and defer to the judgment of your field commander, _not _dive headfirst into the nearest patch of trouble."

He lowered his hand and looked sternly at the Doctor, his firm expression somewhat betrayed by the dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. "This is the _seventh_ time in four months that we've had to bring in a clean up team after a mission you've been involved in has resulted in significant property damage or landed someone in hospital."

The Doctor frowned. "Has it really been that many? Blimey."

"I'm suspending you from field duty until further notice. You'll be discharged in the morning and on temporary leave until you've been cleared by Torchwood Medical to return to work. Get some rest, Doctor."

He turned and left before the Doctor could mount a proper protest. Rose followed Pete into the hallway and he could hear their muffled voices through the door, but not clearly enough to make out their conversation. She returned after a few minutes with a sour expression on her face. He took that to mean she'd been unsuccessful in convincing her father to reconsider his suspension.

"Just _wizard_," he muttered to himself and leaned back into his pillow in defeat.

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Elsewhere. In a small dark room buried deep beneath the city, a faint, slowly blinking light grew brighter, as long neglected machinery began to hum to life once again.

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**_a/n - Apologies for the long delay in posting chapters to this story. I've been having some trouble with writer's block on it, and as a consequence, diverting what little time I have to write right now to my other stories until I could work out the kinks in this one. This plot is actually demanding a fair bit of research on my part, which I hope will pay off in the later chapters. I've a fairly solid idea what happens in the next eight chapters or so now, but no promises as to how fast I'll get it written. I'm less than a month out from a 2,500 mile move so I may be a bit otherwise occupied for a while._**

**_Reader feedback joyfully accepted._**


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